Analyzing Evil Remastered: Demise, Ganondorf, And Ganon From The Legend Of Zelda Series

Hello everyone and welcome to the remastered second episode of Analyzing Evil! Our feature characters for this video are Demise, Ganondorf, and Ganon from The Legend of Zelda Series. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching. If you have any feedback or questions feel free to let me know below!

Chapters:

00:00-01:56 Intro
01:56-08:39 Demise
08:39-18:16 Ganondorf (Ocarina of Time)
18:16-22:40 Ganondorf (Twilight Princess)
22:40-24:44 Ganondorf (Four Swords Adventure)
24:44-32:38 Ganondorf (Wind Waker)
32:38-41:25 Ganondorf (Tears of the Kingdom/Theory)
41:25-43:38 Ganondorf (Summary)
43:38-51:02 Ganon
51:02-55:40 Conclusion

Credits:

xRavenXP - The Legend of ZeldaTsunao the Faker - A Link Between WorldsNintendoComplete - The Adventure of Link LongplayArchive - Four Swords Adventure, A Link to the Past, Oracle of AgesB3TR3Y3L - Ocarina of TimeZeldaCentral - Wind WakerGamer's Little Playground - Tears of the Kingdom
Songs provided by Nintendo.

#ganondorf #legendofzelda #tearsofthekingdom

[crazyspacegames]

Something that fascinates me is the way Demise describes his curse of hatred. The curse sets up a win-win situation for him: the reincarnates of Link and Zelda lose and he is revived and victorious, or they toil and suffer endlessly in their efforts to stop his hatred. But what’s fascinating is what part of it he places emphasis on: the suffering. Demise’s ideal win condition isn’t his revival and victory over the gods. It’s the perpetual suffering of the hero and the goddess reborn.

For so long as Link and Zelda’s legend persists, Demise will be ever victorious, pyrrhic though that victory may be. The series’ very existence is a victory for Demise.

[vautry]

The best part about this channel is that Vile Eye is an equal opportunity media enjoyer. Games, dramas, sci-fi, anime... just a guy with an incredible palate for media.

[markcochrane]

The thing that people forget about WW Ganondorf is that despite his maturity and self-reflection, he is still an unrepentant villain. Redemption is a three step process: realize you were in the wrong, feel bad about it and then do something about it. WW Ganondorf reached step 1, but I doubt he ever reached step 2, and he definitely didn't reach step 3. He had realized he was the bad guy, but he didn't care. He continued to be the Demon King because he still wanted Hyrule. In my opinion, his speech about the wind isn't some sign of remorse or self-justification; it's him telling Link why he does what he does because he thinks the kid deserves to know.

When we look back at OoT, we see he doesn't improve the lives of the Gerudo when he takes over Hyrule, so we know that he was never motivated by the plight of his own people. He was always a jealous, selfish bastard.

[noahjester]

What's always interested me about Ganondorf is how his legacy has essentially defined Hyrule. Every person in the Zelda series has a giant Triforce shaped guillotine hanging over their head. Hyrule exists in a state of perpetual multigenerational conflict, a conflict so old that most Hyruleans have no idea where it started.

[Zac_Frost]

Your theory for as to why Calamity Ganon exists is actually stated in Breath of the Wild if you can snap a picture of the "cocoon" he emerges from before fighting him. I'm paraphrasing, but it says that Ganon abandoned his body and attempted to make a new physical form for himself, but was interrupted by Link at the end of BotW. So you're pretty much right. His power seeped out over time and basically made a quasi-mindless "Phantom Ganon" on steroids.

[Crusty]

39:41 There is an explanation for what Calamity Ganon was in the game, albeit not central to the plot:

"The Calamity was the Demon King of aincent times, bought back to existence in the form of hatred manifest" -Impa

"He was imprisoned beneath Hyrule Castle for ages, but the magic holding him weakened when the castle was damaged during the Calamity a century ago, and his power has steadily been growing since. Now he has revived as a threat beyond the knowledge of any" -Ganondorf Character Bio

[joshuanoon]

Nintendo took the saying "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" to the highest level they could.

[OkMakuTree]

48:14 A minor correction, in the Oracle games the reason why Ganon is revived as a mindless beast is because his resurrection ritual was interrupted by Link. Had Twinrova been able to successfully sacrifice Zelda’s body and soul to revive Ganon he would have been brought back complete, but since Link defeats Twinrova before they complete the ritual, Twinrova is forced to offer up their own body as the sacrifice. This results in Ganon’s botched revival as a mindless monster. This is also most likely why Yuga was so easily able to override Ganon’s mind and steal his power when they fused, Ganon‘s body and power were still separated from his mind so Yuga would’ve faced no resistance in supplanting Ganon’s will. None of this is to say that your theory is wrong, Demise’s curse may have also been deteriorating the remaining vestiges of Ganondorf’s mind, but there is a stated in game reason for OOA/OOS Ganon’s mindless state. Though, in a roundabout manner you are correct, if Ganon’s minions weren’t still trying to enact his hateful will he never would’ve met with such a terrible fate.

[MagicalMaster]

I'm glad my observations were valuable to you. A few more things to consider, first is the Asian Mythology from which Ganandorf's creators are raised by. Asura, beings that were originally Good and were corrupted into monsters. A God of Evil. Which Ganondorf can be considered. And even if it cannot be applied to Ganon or the Curse of Demise, it can be applied to the Triforce of Power.

There's also the official word from Nintendo about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Which is that it is the end of ALL timelines. Meaning every Ganondorf becomes that. And I think I understand how. The Triforce can warp reality, it can shift and alter time itself. And timelines most likely. So ALL forms of Ganondorf come together to form this new one. It also explains why the ancient history is so fragmented and forgotten. A long period of time or not, they were all in time periods were recordkeeping and large structure building were common. Meaning that there would be more proof, if things weren't possibly altered via time manipulation.

It also explains why aspects from mutually exclusive timelines are all together. Koroks and Rito are mutually exclusive with the Zora after all. But they exist in the same land. So of course there would be an alteration.

[lisboah]

My favorite version of Ganondorf is Wind Waker. There's a part, at the end, when he realizes what he wanted at the start, but the lust for power and Demise's curse drove him to full-blown evil. It's even possible that all versions of Ganondorf started good, but Demise's Curse eventually triggered and started guiding their actions.
And his final words, to me, can be interpreted as Demise's Curse leaving as Ganondorf was no longer a useful tool for its goal, and he returns to being the Gerudo King that wanted something better for his people.

[LazerFrog_]

Theory: So in the backstory cutscene, it says the goddesses created the world out of chaos, so what if Demise already rules over the world, but the goddesses ripped it away from him when they made the land we know as Hyrule. After this, his hatred grows. Thus why he desires to rule the world, he wants his land back

[gakamech]

I really like the idea I read somewhere that there was a sort of Nexus event throughout the 3 timelines, a sort of inter dimensional Bronze Age Collapse, where everything went so badly the world went back centuries; so back, in fact, that it took so much time for it to get back into shape the three timelines fuse into a single one.
This would tie the new games with all of the Zelda timeline, giving us a single timeline, and explains the more tribal and primitive look that Sonia has (which could be an indicator of these Post-Nexus Hylians being very tecnologically behind their ancestors)

[rainmanslim]

I really like what they did with ganon(dorf), he started out as some stock villain with no real story or a basic story in each game, but the story of why its the same guy over and over and over again was a stroke of genius. He's the reincarnation of an evil god and the constant battles between ganon vs link and zelda is this long running battle of the gods being played out in mortal form. I love it.

[alexander_Izunia]

I swear Ganondorf is the greatest villain in gaming. The man is so powerful, so coniving, so compelling, pure EVIL, and overall a perfect fit for the series

[sentientmustache]

Ganondorf’s character entry in TOTK actually tells you how Calamity Ganon was born, it says that the seal on him began to lose strength a century ago, which is when the calamity happened

[bigcgaming]

I’m actually excited to play Tears of the Kingdom especially hearing Matt Mercer as Ganondorf. Now that’s gonna be badass

[TehSkullKid]

Wind Waker's Ganondorf is a step above some of the other incarnations in my opinion. We can track his story from the beginning of Ocarina of Time, where we learn he was a power-hungry and conniving ruler, but one that still came from a place of wanting to do right by his people. It's just that his desires were magnified and corrupted by Demise's curse. But his moments of actual rule were brief and violent compared to his imprisonment. Just 7 years of rule during the events of Ocarina of Time, followed by an indefinite amount of time banished outside of Hyrule, until his return and subsequent rage-fueled rampage in a world that no longer had a hero. Which was then quickly swallowed up by the Goddesses' flood. Then came hundreds of years of more imprisonment before finally enacting his last-ditch effort to regain the Triforce during the events of Wind Waker. The King of Hyrule had suffered a similar fate, banished under the water in a timeline abandoned by the Goddesses, but had used that time to learn humility and resolved to help Link and Tetra build a new kingdom. Ganondorf only stews in his hatred over those years and continues to plot, even when there's hardly anything left to rule. It's a pattern of relentless pursuit of control, even with diminishing returns. He directly addresses his own selfishness in his last monologue in Wind Waker, but still chooses the path of evil, because there is nothing left for him besides clinging on to this dim hope that he can regain the fleeting power he once held. It's a really interesting arc from noble intentions and ambition to cruelty and malice, to eventual acceptance of his evil and fatalism. Without the influence of Demise, he might have been a champion of his people.

[CrzYbaDmutha]

That man is the most optimistic, wholehearted, intellectual I've seen all day.

[kingtrezhon]

I swear Vile, I've watched that Ganon video a good handful of times, never would I have thought you'd remaster it. This was a great gift after a long day of work, thank you sir

[Lottee]

To me there is something inherently tragic about Ganon in really all incarnations stemming from Demise onward, and honestly with Zelda and Link too. They are three people who had their fates decided upon so many eons ago and depending on the game/timeline people in their current age may not even believe that the stories of their history are real. There is something honestly a little miserable about all three of them.

In Breath of the Wild we see that very starkly with Zelda, who buckles under the immense pressure of being the literal avatar of a god and how she wants to live her life in her own terms without that destiny pre-determining what must happen to her. In some ways it feels like even being named Zelda is a curse for any princess of Hyrule, like it's a bad omen of what their future could be. It's made canon in Breath of the Wild (and presumably Tears of the Kingdom) that Link was once a normal happy child (based on Mipha's recollections of him) who grew into being *selectively mute* due to the pressures of what his role became. It's been noted that the Link we play as seems to be much less weighed down by this, he's still selectively mute but appears more at ease in himself than what we saw in cut scenes and read in Zelda's diary. In Tears of the Kingdom it seems even Zelda had enjoyed some sense of freedom she simply didn't have before the destruction of Hyrule. She was able to pursue the things we saw her being passionate about in Breath of the Wild, exploring this new Hyrule and studying it in ways the restrictions of her role as princess and avatar of Hylia didn't allow.

Ganon, no matter how sympathetic his motivations are (like in Windwaker), seems destined to become essentially a madman. In Breath of the Wild the spirit of Urbosa speaks to her divine beast about how legends say Calamity Ganon once took the form of a Gerudo man and how she (and presumably all of the Gerudo) find this insulting and she considers her part in defeating Calamity Ganon to be some just revenge for him having used her people in the distant past. Her divine beast is even named Vah Naboris, playing off Nabooru from Ocarina of Time who you mentioned was later used by Ganondorf. In BOTW I think she was referring to Ocarina Ganondorf as the details of TOTK weren't really set, but with TOTK I think it could be retconned to her speaking about the man we see in that game. But either way we get a previous Gerudo chief who is vocally rejecting Ganon's involvement with the Gerudo and we can assume this is a sentiment shared by the others. The memory that his own people have of him is not a positive one, he isn't welcomed by them by the time these games take place and is seen as a disgrace to the Gerudo. Even if his initial goals may be seen as for the betterment of his people, he always devolves into madness and cruelty. It seems, much like Link and Zelda, no matter what Ganon the man strives for he is doomed by Demise's curse.

I know a lot of the themes for this game series as a whole involves goodness overcoming evil, but I can't help but feel there's an element of tragedy to the characters.